Printers Row fair a treat

June 25, 2007|ANN LEONARD Tribune Correspondent

It was close to heaven. I had never gone to the annual Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago and didn't know what to expect. After Saturday, June 9, I do. In the middle of Dearborn Street were white tents, and the first one I came to was the University of Illinois Press. Beyond were stall after stall with sellers of old and new books. The tents looked like Lake Michigan waves we used to call "whitecaps." The sidewalks held vendors with tables and racks of books not under tents, and restaurants with tables outside and people eating and drinking. I didn't want to waste time so I made a circuit of what was available. Activity was increasing by the minute. When I stopped at Pennyworth Books where all books were $5, I had to do some fast maneuvering to get the books I wanted -- all children's. One I couldn't resist was a lift-the-flap and pull-the-tab board book called "Jack It's a Sunny Day" for my 7-month-old grandson Jack. All the books I bought were hardcover, and I left with two heavy sacks to carry. Not a particularly good idea as my day was just starting. As I pushed on, I stopped at Casterbridge Books, which was not as crowded as Pennyworth and met a gregarious bookseller who loved to talk books. Of course I found four thick, heavy hardbacks and acquired another sack to carry. It was still a very pleasant day and I stopped to chat with one of the gals outside the trailer of Book TV on C-SPAN2. They were broadcasting live and handing out red totes. Took a tote and divided my books. My first scheduled event was at 1 p.m. and I wanted to have lunch beforehand. Fortunately I found a restaurant/bar that hadn't gotten busy. After I left the restaurant carrying my purse, two bags, plus the tote, and walked to find a cab, I realized I had left one bag with books back at the restaurant! Anxiously, I hurried back; by now the crowd was very thick, and found the brown paper bag untouched -- probably no one could lift it up off the floor. Now carrying a purse, two white plastic sacks, one red tote and the very heavy brown paper sack, I hailed a cab to go to the author event at the Chicago Cultural Center. I could hardly get into the taxi and then could hardly get out. A formally dressed guard at the Cultural Center assured me that he had no knowledge of author Julia Glass speaking at 1 p.m., but, not satisfied, I spoke with three others at different spots until finally even I became convinced I had the wrong location. It must be the Harold Washington Library I wanted, which was scarcely two blocks from where I had caught the cab in the first place. What to do? Oh well. Out the door, down the steps of the Cultural Center, and into another cab to go back to square one. When the cab pulled up at the library, the curb was so high I could barely open the door and squeeze myself, my purse, the two plastic sacks, the red tote, and brown paper sack out, plus pay the cabbie. Yes indeed, Julia Glass, the author of "Three Junes" and "The Whole World Over" was being interviewed at the Harold Washington Library. Julia Glass was a jolly-looking woman who smiled a lot and it was hard to connect her persona to the sections of her books which the audience thought had pretty steamy homosexual sex scenes. Her first book, "Three Junes," she explained, was arranged as a triptych with one main character and two characters flanking the central one. It won the 2002 National Book Award, and in private conversation she talked about her New York apartment before the award. It was so tiny she had to go to a friend's to dress for the award dinner. However, the award money changed that for the better. In the interview, Glass was asked if she wrote every day and she said no. "I have to think about characters, need a bit of silent, alone time, and when I get to the computer I sort of download my work. Then I revise like an addict. I actually write about 10 hours a week ... do dialogue at the computer." On the following day, the crowds were bigger and I only visited the University of Chicago tent. Most of my time was spent at interviews with Joyce Carol Oates and Anchee Min. Oates was willowy and graceful and discussed her new book, "The Gravediggers Daughter," explaining she wrote the book about her grandmother whom she knew as a woman who lived for others, a person who never talked about herself. Oates teaches creative writing at Princeton and told the audience, "I begin with a character that interests me and write down a description." She puts conversations on scraps of paper scattered over a table and then fit the scraps together. "Then I put together an outline. The first six weeks writing a novel are hell -- that's why so many new writers give up." Next, I attended the interview with Anchee Min, whose latest book, "The Last Empress," is a sequel to her "Empress Orchid." Min said she wanted to write about the empress to correct the Communist version propagated during the Cultural Revolution, which taught the empress was "pure evil." Min's empress embodies "so much" of China in addition to being an early feminist.